Hey WYO,
Driving down to Colorado Springs to cheer for the good guys in green for a weekend? I won't tell 'tony' so he won't revoke your Bisonville rights.
With two WCHA, a CCHA, and an AHA team in Colorado Springs, and with a WCHA team in each Friday game, I'd expect to see HEA or ECAC referees.
They tend to allow less clutch and grab (and extra stick-work).
I'm sure having the Title IX vultures circling doesn't help, but let's face the realities. They have budget issues, be they low numbers at the gates through bad budget numbers in St. Paul.
Mratings.com shows the NCC team most comparable to Valparaiso is MSU-Mankato and the NSIC team most comparable to Montana Tech is none other than UM-Crookston.
The all-tourney goalie should have been King.
The tourney MVP should have been Irmen or G. Potulny, but they both have "home town" problems in the eyes of some.
Francis, Francis, Francis, .... you make many, many assumptions in that posting and most of them Scott Sandelin's team has a major say in. To overlook them, a very good team in their own right, is to invite disaster and ridicule.
Let me give you one crazy scenario:
Minnesota gets a #1 seed by beating Duluth. Being a "big ice" team the NCAA puts them on the big ice in Colorado Springs and puts UND on NHL width ice somewhere else.
Based on
- all the crazy upsets last weekend
- all the non-top 16 PWR teams still left
- the history of the NCAA's decision processes
I'd hold off predicting UND playing anywhere until I see the brackets announced by the NCAA.